Sunday, August 31, 2008

I Did It!!!

Sorry there are so many pictures, I took 45 and couldn't pick just one favorite one--which one is your favorite? Personally I think she is beautiful in all of the pictures--her cheeks aren't even torn apart from being taped for 8 weeks.

Gracie did it! She is extubated and is doing well! They pulled the tube out around 11:45am and immediately put her on high flow. Though she tolerated it relatively well she was extremely ticked off and had a hard time keeping her sats up, but her heart rate never went above the high 180s. It seemed as if she hated the high flow, but on top of that she has had a terribly belly ache for the last few days and she was having a hard time coughing up the junk in her chest.

At one point the Attending decided to try and give Grace some kedamine (a sedative) to help her relax, but it helped to much and she stopped breathing unless we were messing with her. Once we got her through the effects of the kedamine, she was still completely agitated that the nurse suggested that I try holding her. I promptly obliged and within a couple minutes she was out and calm. I held her for about three hours straight, bouncing and rocking the entire time almost because the moment I stopped she would get so agitated and fussy that she would freak out and we don't want her doing that.

So it has been about 11 hours and she is doing well. In fact the doctors were kind of surprised at how good she was doing--they began to wonder if they waited too long to extubate. I assured them that I didn't think so, I'd rather have had them wait a little longer to have her do so well as opposed to fail or struggle more.

Gracie is still being watched closely but as of now she has yet to show signs of labored breathing or getting too tired. The plan now is to let her get stronger and on Wednesday go to the OR for her skin graft. She will have to be reintubated for that, but the docs are hoping to extubate while in the OR or soon after she returns to the PICU. It looks like we just may be able to go home in a couple of weeks--wouldn't that just be amazing, especially since Gracie will be 8 weeks old tomorrow.